Inspired by a post by Jonathan Glazier, format creator and executive producer of altmedia.
For years, the television pitch had a familiar shape. You developed an idea, wrote a treatment, made a deck, perhaps shot a sizzle, and tried to persuade a broadcaster to commission it.
I have watched filmmakers follow much the same path. Make the film. Submit it. Hope a festival, distributor or platform opens the door.
Jonathan Glazier has raised an awkward question for anyone developing a show: where is the money for new ideas going? His answer is that it has moved. Broadcasters still matter, but creators, brands, and audiences now have a much larger role in deciding what gets made.
That should interest independent filmmakers. We have spent decades learning how to make work without waiting for permission. Now we need to get equally good at finding the people who want to watch it.
1. Start with the audience
Before you ask whether a channel will buy your idea, ask who would miss it if it did not exist.
“Everyone who likes drama” is not an audience. Neither is “young people.” Think of a specific community, curiosity, or appetite. What do those people already watch? What do they talk about afterwards? Where do they find work made for them?
This does not mean letting an audience write your film by committee. It means knowing whom you hope to move.
The more clearly you can describe that relationship, the more useful every creative and financial decision becomes.
2. Give the idea a small life
Glazier asks whether a pitch today is still a one-pager and a deck, or whether it needs a pilot and an audience. I think the answer depends on what you are making. A deck can explain a project. A small release can show what happens when people meet it.
A documentary filmmaker might share a short scene and learn which questions viewers ask. A comedy creator might test three sketches built around the same characters. A producer developing a series might release one carefully made episode.
None of these guarantees a commission. Each gives you evidence: whether people finish watching, return, share it, or ask for more.
Those responses can sharpen the work before you mortgage y0ur future.
3. Think beyond the broadcaster
A channel may be the right home for your project. It is no longer the only place to begin looking.
A creator can build an audience on YouTube. A filmmaker can work with a cultural organisation that cares about the subject. A brand may support a format that serves both its customers and a wider public. Festivals can help a film meet viewers who become its first advocates.
Each route asks a different question.
- A broadcaster wants to know whether the programme fits its schedule and remit.
- An audience wants a reason to give you its time.
- A partner wants to know what it can help achieve.
Make sure the project itself remains worth watching whichever route you take.
4. Count the cost of waiting
Development feels inexpensive when most of the work happens at a desk. But months of writing, revising, and pitching have a cost, especially when nobody pays you for them.
Glazier argues that developing for a channel first and hoping funding follows can be an expensive way to fail. I recognise the frustration behind that argument. I have met filmmakers who could describe every commissioning brief in the country but had lost touch with the people they wanted to entertain.
Set a limit on how long you will pitch before trying something else.
Decide what you can make or show with the resources you have. You may still take the broadcaster meeting. You will enter it knowing more about your project.
5. Keep the human thinking
Glazier is candid about using AI to help with research and spelling while keeping the thinking his own. That distinction matters.
Tools can help you organise notes, check a transcript, or make a proposal easier to read. They cannot tell you why a character’s choice breaks your heart, or why a story matters to the place you come from. Those judgments belong to the creator.
Use whatever helps you work. Then take responsibility for the claims, the taste and the point of view in what you put your name to.
6. Build something people can return to
A good opening can attract attention. A returning show needs another reason for people to come back.
What is the promise you can make repeatedly? It could be the pleasure of seeing the same characters face new trouble. It could be a documentary format that takes us somewhere unfamiliar each week. Or, it could be a filmmaker whose eye for overlooked lives makes every new release an event. Again, harken to Jonathan Glazier.
That promise is part of development. Test it early. If people enjoy one instalment, find out what they hope to see next.
7. Make the next move yours
There is still value in a brilliant pitch. There is value in persistence with commissioners, too. But the most useful question Glazier leaves us with is one we can act on now: are you developing for a channel, a brand or an audience?
Choose deliberately. If you cannot yet reach the partner you want, find a way to reach viewers. Make a scene. Release an episode. Start a conversation around the subject. Learn from the response and improve the work.
I founded Raindance because filmmakers needed somewhere to show films that the established routes had overlooked. The same instinct applies here. Find your people, make something for them, and give them a way to find you again.
With thanks to Jonathan Glazier for prompting this piece. Read his original post and altmedia for his argument in full.
The Raindance ecosystem
If you are ready to strengthen the skills behind the work, Raindance courses offer practical training in writing, directing, producing, marketing and the rapidly changing tools available to filmmakers.
Submit your completed work to the Raindance Film Festival and place it before audiences who are actively looking for bold independent cinema.
Join Raindance Membership Circle to find collaborators, opportunities and an international filmmaking community.
When your film is ready to meet the marketplace, Raindance Releasing helps filmmakers approach distribution without surrendering control of their work or their relationship with the audience.
And through the Independent Film Trust, you can support filmmakers whose voices might otherwise be excluded through lack of access, opportunity or money.
Whatever stage you are at, start behaving like the filmmaker you intend to become.
Because the call sheet may change.
The responsibility does not.
Photo Credit: Bertie Watson
I founded Raindance Film Festival in 1993 because the British film industry was closed, polite, and congratulating itself while shutting new filmmakers out.
I co-founded the British Independent Film Awards in 1998 because British indie film deserved more than a shrug, a pat on the head, and a Tuesday night screening.
Raindance didn’t start as a brand. It started as a rebellion: film training without gatekeepers, a festival without permission, and a community built by filmmakers who weren’t waiting to be invited in.
Later, we took it global: Toronto, Vancouver, New York, LA, Berlin, and Brussels, because independent film doesn’t belong to one city, one class, or one accent.
I’ve produced 700+ short films and seven features, including Deadly Virtues (2014) and ALICE, which won the SXSW Grand Jury Prize (2019) not because someone “discovered” us, but because the work earned its place.
I’ve written three books used by filmmakers worldwide because too many courses taught compliance instead of survival.
In 2009, I was awarded a PhD for services to film education, ironic, given that most of my career has been about tearing down the rules that education insisted you follow.
I don’t believe in waiting for permission.I believe in making work, building systems, and forcing the industry to catch up.
Specialties: Independent Film (the real kind) · Producing · Writing · Film Education · Festivals · Breaking Broken Systems
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